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Carolus Linnaeus

© Beverly Eschberger

Both Aristotle and Linnaeus grouped organisms by their similaries in outward appearance or morphology. Neither acknowledged that the similarities might be due to the fact that the organisms were related. Linnaeus assigned scientific names to over 11,000 species of plants and animals! As botany was of most interest to him, he named about 9,000 plants, 828 shells, 2,100 insects, and 477 fish.

Linnaeus continued to publish new editions of his Systema Naturae throughout his life, and it grew from a slim pamphlet to a multi-volume work. He also published many articles on botany, and several books that used his classification system to describe groups of plants. Linnaeus was given a professorial appointment at the University of Uppsala, and he spent his time there teaching and restoring the botanical garden where he had worked as a young medical student, arranging the plants according to his system of classification.

Even though he was kept busy with his scholarly work, Linnaeus managed to build a successful medical practice, and even became the physician to the Swedish royal family. In 1762, the Swedish king made him a knight and a nobleman, and he became known as Carl von Linne, the von being somewhat akin to referring to a British knight as "Sir". When he was in his seventies, Linnaeus suffered a stroke which caused his health to decline, he died January 10th, 1778.

The work that Linnaeus did in developing the Systema Naturae and his binomial system of classification is invaluable to scientists today. Many of the over 11,000 binomials that he assigned are still in use today. Today, scientists group organisms according to how they are related, rather than based on outward appearance, so some species have been moved to different Families or Orders to reflect those relationships.

In my next article, I will go into more detail about how organisms are classified, and talk about the five Kingdoms that we divide organisms into.

More information about Linnaeus, his life, and his science:

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/lin...

http://www.systbot.uu.se/dept/history/li...

http://www.c18.org/pr/lc/intro.html